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This page is designed to provide Department Chairs, Search Chairs and any faculty participating in faculty searches at Cornell with specific tools and ideas for effective searches. The resources for effective searches featured on this page are based on research data and on institutional evidence from universities that have proven results from implementing the strategies that are suggested here. The guidelines to be found here for pool development, establishing search committees, planning, conducting and evaluating searches, and minimizing bias in the search process are not mandated by Cornell University, but are strongly encouraged as best practices with proven positive outcomes.

Pre-Recruitment

Recruitment and Hiring

Please contact the ADVANCE staff listed above to organize a meeting for your women candidates with other women faculty from across campus during interviews.

 

Best Practices in Recruitment and Hiring at Cornell

College of Veterinary Medicine

College of Engineering:

New Life Sciences Initiative

 

Articles and Research

Research on how gender bias can affect the quality of searches, tenure, promotion and peer review:

  • Exploring the Color of Glass: letters of recommendation for female and male medical faculty PDF
  • The Impact of Gender on the Review of Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates PDF
  • Selected References on Stereotyping and Unconscious Bias PDF

Research reports and recommendations on gender equity in higher education

  • AAUP Faculty Gender Equity Indicators 2006 PDF

  • An Agenda for Excellence: Creating Flexibility in Tenure-Track Faculty Careers (An American Council on Education and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Report) PDF
  • Career Patterns of Women and Men in the Sciences, Sonnert, Gerhard, Holton, Gerald. American Scientist. Research Triangle Park: Jan 1996. Vol 84, Iss. 1; pg.63
    (Available through Cornell University's Library Databases)
    [Sonnert and Holton discuss the results of Project Access, which studied in detail a sample of female and male scientists to determine both the degree of gender disparity in the average career outcome and the causes for the disparity.]
  • Motivated Stereotyping of Women Link

  • Casuistry and Social Category Bias Michael I. Nornton, Joseph A. Vandello, John M Darley. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Washington: Dec 2004. Vol. 87, Iss. 6: pg. 817
    (Available through Cornell University's Library Databases)
    [This research explored cases where people are drawn to make judgments between individuals based on questionable criteria, in particular those individuals' social group memberships. Authors suggest that individuals engage in casuistry to mask biased decision making, by recruiting more acceptable criteria to justify such decisions. Authors present 6 studies that demonstrate how casuistry licenses people to judge on the basis of social category information but appear unbiased--to both others and themselves--while doing so. In 2 domains (employment and college admissions decisions), with 2 social categories (gender and race), and with 2 motivations (favoring an in-group or out-group), the present studies explored how participants justify decisions biased by social category information by arbitrarily inflating the relative value of their preferred candidates' qualifications over those of competitors.]

Articles and commentaries on differences in perception and experiences of women in academe

  • Does Gender Matter? A Commentary PDF
  • Women see less Clarity in Tenure Requirements than do Men Link
  • Where the Elite Teach, It's Still a Man's World Link
  • Nepotism and sexism in peer review PDF
  • Don't Just Search, Recruit PDF

Resources from Virginia Valian:

  • Creating Equity PDF
  • Why so Slow? PDF
  • Advancing Women: a Bibliography PDF

Useful links